The Italy-France World Cup final earned a 7.0 rating on ABC, nearly three times the 2.5 rating for the 2002 World Cup final between Brazil and Germany. This year’s telecast averaged nearly 12 million viewers (people 2+) and 7,750,000 homes.
The rating was ABC’s third-highest rated men’s soccer game and also the third most-viewed since the network resumed televising the World Cup in 1994 (behind the 9.5 for the 1994 World Cup final between Brazil and Italy and the 9.3 for the USA-Brazil game on July 4, 1994).
The 2006 data comes from “fast national” ratings but still may change slightly when final ratings numbers are announced on Thursday.